Hollywood Gays (24 page)

Q: (I laugh, then we both laugh.) Back to your closet, for a moment. “Cesar Romero, we’ve been told, has 500 suits, 190 sports jackets, and 30 tuxedos.”

A: I wonder who counted?

Q: I know! It goes on, “Douglas Fairbanks Sr., in his heyday, owned 454 suits, one for every day of the year plus two for each Sunday and holiday.”

A: That’s a lot of arithmetic. Well, clothes make the man. We were all expected to look our best in public. It went for everyone, star and featured player alike.

Q: Do you prefer the term “supporting actor” or “character actor’’?

A: I prefer the paycheck! And bigger is better. Speaking of that, you’re circumcised?

Q: Yes. But...

A: But back to the closet? (Grins sexily.)

Q: For a moment. All those clothes! I can’t imagine.

A: I think for your generation, clothes are just what you wear after you get out of bed....

Q: With so many clothes, was that for a sound business investment or monumental vanity?

A: (Laughs.) Couldn’t it be both? I do have to say, if I hadn’t been out on the dance floor so much, I probably wouldn’t have bought so many clothes. But it was a good investment, and sometimes I wore my own clothes in a picture, which paid off.

Q: I believe in the late 1950s you began promoting a line of men’s suits?

A: Yes, we all did promotions. Of course, the bigger the star, the more promotions you got to do, the actresses even more so—cosmetics, hats, all that. I pushed suits. And it even helped my social life. The company wanted me to go out and be seen in their suits. With a lady on my arm, they stipulated.

Q: Was it in the contract?

A: (Laughs.) No, no. But it was understood. To get more customers.

Q: And publicity.

A: Ah, yes. There’s always more publicity in a pair, a couple—a man and a woman. So I did it. After all, it was business, to sell our suits.

Q: But you didn’t sell yourself, the way most actors did—and do.

A: Not a lot. (Smiles.) I’m just very lucky I loved dancing. Otherwise... (shrugs). It was a great cover, but great fun. What wasn’t any fun, later on, was when I had my own chain of men’s clothing stores. All kinds of losses, and I had to bust my ass to pay them off. I was right from the start—business was never my strong suit.

Q: Nice pun. Tyrone Power was a snappy dresser too.

A: (Posture stiffens.) We all did our best. Of course, clothes have even more of an effect, worn on someone so exceptionally handsome.

Q: Do you think that some men—they said this was true of Robert Taylor—resent being beautiful, that is, they’re embarrassed by their looks or even feel categorized as non-heterosexual by them?

A: Bob Taylor, I know, had some deep-seated problems. Not because of whom he did or didn’t go to bed with; I just think he wasn’t very happy. But with Ty, he was for the most part happy-go-lucky. Into
my
life, he brought a lot of sunshine, and not only mine. At Fox, he was beloved by everyone. Even Zanuck had a slight crush on him. Ty was irresistible, not just physically. But some damn biographers want to dramatize everything. They write about Ty as a personality of much light and shade. Not true!

Q: Yet there had to be some conflict, in that he was bisexual, and as a star he had to do the expected, with three wives and three kids, and he had to hide his gay affairs and relationships. (No response.) In his early forties, he looked closer to 50.

A: Lots of pressure...professional pressures too. Becoming a star—that’s tough. Staying a star—even tougher. Sometimes he overdid or drank too much. But Ty was never alcoholic, and he never burdened his friends with his problems. Which some of us would have been happy to share.

Q: It’s remarkable how many male Hollywood stars—gay, hetero, or bi—died by age 50 or 60. Gable, Cooper, Flynn, Alan Ladd, Tyrone Power, of course—a long list. As opposed to non-star males—character actors and comedic ones—and of course non-sex symbol actresses, who typically last into their eighties or even nineties. Why?

A: Why do the men, the men stars, die young? (Shrugs.) Fortunately, I’m no authority. All I can think is great pressure—on all of them, as you said. Some weren’t very happy being stars, believe it or not. Ty was, for the most part. And most men stars don’t have the happiest or stablest private lives. Perhaps because their lives aren’t private, and all the pressures of being and staying a masculine sex symbol...and a role model too (nods).

Q: The women stars don’t have to prove anything.

A: No, they just have to keep looking great. (Smiles.) And learn to defer.

Q: That, they’re brought up with from the time they leave the cradle—I have a sister. You too (he nods), I imagine you’ve heard that the bisexual star in Gore Vidal’s novel
The City and the Pillar
(1948) was based on Power?

A: I don’t believe Mr. Vidal knew Ty very well.

Q: Perhaps not, although he did write movies in Hollywood. But one doesn’t have to know a public figure well to write about him in a novel. You’ve been described as “feline.” Any comment?

A:
Meow!
(Laughs.) But I never played Catwoman on
Batman
.

Q: Your Joker was very campy.

A: I loved it. Except for all the laughter—my throat. At first I felt somewhat foolish, the show was rather juvenile, and the guy never stopped laughing like a hyena in heat. You notice, if you’ve seen it, that they often put a young lady, some blonde, in a scene with me. Like you were supposed to think she was the Joker’s girlfriend.

Q: To, uh, butch you up? To make the character seem heterosexual?

A: Yes! But I doubt it worked.... But once I saw how juvenile TV was getting, and what a popular hit
Batman
was—
twice
a week, and a feature film from it—I relaxed into it. I just laughed and made more money than I had in some time.

Q: You laughed all the way to the bank. To re-coin Liberace’s pet phrase.

A: (Shudders.) “Pet”.... Now, he’s the kind Ty or Bob Taylor wouldn’t have wanted to be grouped with. (Shakes head.) But do not print this, or he’d sue, and I’d have to deny saying it. (Leans forward.) Here, rewind that part. (I do.) Again, you understand that anything I say about anyone...like that, it’s not for public consumption in my lifetime.

Q: (Leaning into the mike.) Yes, I do.

A: Good. I now pronounce us man and husband. (Both laugh.)

Q: But Liberace, who regardless of selfish or self-loathing denials, is gay—

A: Careful!

Q: Well, he is. A blind man can see he’s gay. He’s the stereotype, so he stands out. Unlike Tab and Rock and Cary or Sal or...on and on. The point is he sued more than once for being described as what he was. Would you?

A: Probably not. I would if someone described what I do in bed; I would think a heterosexual would too. I would sue if the person saying or writing it was being vicious, if he was—what’s the word?

Q: Homophobic.

A: Yes. But in this day and age, if it’s just written in passing, and they don’t dwell on it... (shrugs). Why fuss over it?

Q: In fact, most gay celebrities would avoid the publicity of a lawsuit. And the possible scrutiny. I doubt Liberace could so effortlessly win his cases today.

A: The law is still biased.

Q: But not as blind. That’s why it’s usually settled out of court, with token damages. Stars have much to lose.

A: Yes. They’ve often made fortunes out of fooling the public. But this whole business is based on make-believe. (Shrugs.)

Q: There’s make-believe, and there’s make-believe. Fiction is one thing. But pretending nobody rich or famous or admired is ever non-heterosexual is appalling, especially for young people.

A: You mean role models? That’s true. It would have been much easier for all of us.

Q: On TV recently, I saw a clip of a 1930s movie premiere, and there you were. (He smiles.) That gaze and that smile! (Beams.)

A: Who was I with?

Q: That’s just it. You were actually with Tyrone Power. But one of you was arm in arm with Sonja Henie and the other with Ann Sothern. I believe you all got out of the same limousine. Did you and Ty go home together, afterward?

A: (Grins.) It was a studio arrangement. You were paired up with someone by the publicity department, usually another contract player.

Q: Playing the hide the sexual minority game.

A: Yes. Arranged dates. They called them dates. But usually you just showed up at the premiere together. Sometimes you didn’t stay for the whole movie. It wasn’t like nightclubs, where you were obligated to arrive and leave with the same...”date.” The crowds and photographers and announcers didn’t usually stick around very long after the movie was underway.

Q: Who was “paired” with Henie and who with Sothern?

A: I don’t remember. It might have been...could it be
Ali Baba Goes to Town?
I don’t remember seeing it, but I went to...the premiere with Ty. That would have been the late ‘30s (1937).

Q: I know people in Argentina and Mexico, in the 1940s, who read in the papers there that you and Power were lovers, when you traveled there together....

A: “
Amantes
”? (Spanish for “lovers.”)

Q: I don’t know what it said in Buenos Aires, but in one of the Mexican articles I read, the word was “
novios
” (meaning “sweethearts,” “fiancés,” or “bridegrooms”). Such coverage—not that Latin America is so socially enlightened—would not have occurred in U.S. papers.

A: You said it!

Q: And such coverage didn’t hurt either career. Can you explain?

A: Well, Mexico...we were there shooting
Captain from Castile
(1947). We were there about three months, we shared a house, and it was a wonderful experience, I think an excellent movie (about Spaniard Hernan Cortez’s conquest of Mexico and the destruction of its Aztec empire).

Q: Did you like it so much because it was a bigger role than usual for you?

A: Yes. But, um, before that, during the war (WWII), we were sent on a goodwill tour of South America, to promote the Good Neighbor Policy. One of the places we visited was Argentina. It was a great trip, lots of fun, and of course my Spanish was very helpful and practical for both of us.

Q: Did you know about such newspaper stories?

A: I don’t think I remember. I may have heard about it. But not at the time.

Q: Who would have been more upset about it, you or Ty?

A: Ooh!
He
would have. He was more of a worrier.

Q:
Your
reaction would have been what?

A: Well, in those days...but as long as they didn’t get personal. (Shrugs.) I wouldn’t feel it was any kind of an insult to be paired with Ty, in any way.

Q: (Gently.) You’re devoted to him.

A: Yes (nods several times). I am. I always will be.

Q: This quote sounds rather modern, but did Ty ever advise you, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”?

A: (Laughs.) Probably something of that nature. About not getting married. He was more Latin than me, in that regard. Many Latin men carry on their gay affairs after getting married, but to protect themselves—from suspicions, you know—they have these relationships with other married men. Which no one ever suspects.

Q: Oscar Wilde said, “Nothing looks so innocent as an indiscretion.”

A: I think he went to a lot of dinner parties, that one. (Smiles.)

Q: Cesar, you said earlier that in showbiz it’s all make-believe, so where’s the harm? But the thing is, people like you and Ty—due to the one-sidedness and invisibility—had to distort your lives, hide your natural inclinations, and undertake an entire lifestyle to continue that make-believe after hours.

A: Well,
he
did. In a way. But it was to placate the public.

Q: Not all of the public—the heterosexual public.

A: Yes, well, I went my own way. I wasn’t going to compromise myself that much. Just enough to earn my living and stay in the business. Ty may have urged me to get married. But I also had my own ideas on what he should do. Everyone does. Still, you do what you want, and he does what he wants.

Q: Or feels he has to do. Would you have advised him to marry less?

A: What’s the difference? It’s done and over with now.

Q: In his place, as a star of his...box office, would you have undertaken all those marriages and offspring?